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From today, all elections are global

Presswire, 13 June 2016

The Global Vote launches today, allowing the world to vote on other countries’ elections – starting with the U.S. and Icelandic Presidential Elections, and the UK EU Referendum.

The Global Vote(www.globalvote.org) launches today and, for the first time in history, everybody on Earth with an internet connection will be able to vote on the elections of any other country. Approximately once a month, the Global Vote (www.globalvote.org) will offer millions of people around the world the chance to vote on a different national election or referendum.

The Global Vote is already open for the world to vote on the UK EU Referendum on 23 June, followed closely by the Icelandic Presidential Election on 25 June. There will then be regular opportunities to vote in other elections and referenda, including the biggest vote in the world this year: the US Presidential Election on 8 November. People can vote from todayhere.

The Global Vote has been created by Simon Anholt, an independent policy advisor who has worked with the Heads of State and Heads of Government of more than fifty countries. He is the visionary behind the Good Country, a growing global movement committed to changing how leaders run their countries, for the good of all humanity, launched in 2014 in his TEDTalk. The second edition of theGood Country Index, the world’s first study of how much each country contributes to the rest of humanity and to the planet, was launched by Anholt in June 2016.

Anholt comments: “We should all care who runs other people’s countries, not just our own. To make the world work, we need a world of good leaders: leaders who consider the needs of every man, woman, child and animal on the planet. The Global Vote is here to empower us, the rest of the world, to achieve this aim by reminding each candidate in each national election that we’re here, we care, and we’re watching. The tipping-point will come when we have more people outside a given country voting on its new leaders than there are citizens voting inside the country. Every time that happens, I believe that the world will truly have changed.”

“With the help of our Global Voters in two hundred countries, we can build a world of good leaders, one country at a time. But we need many millions of people participating in the Global Vote if we are to change the world.”

According to Anholt, the long-term goal of the Good Country movement is “to encourage a new generation of world leaders with minds that telescope, not minds that microscope. We need a change in the culture of governance worldwide if nations are to learn to collaborate and co-operate a lot more, and compete a little less, and so address the huge, shared, globalised challenges that humanity faces in the modern age”.

Simon Anholt is the founder of the Good Country, the Good Country Index, and The Global Vote.

Through his work as an independent advisor to Heads of State and Heads of Government and global organisations like the United Nations, Simon has developed innovative strategies, policies and projects for more than 50 countries, enabling them to engage more positively and productively with other countries.

His work covers areas as important to business leaders and global publics as much as to governments, such as international and cultural relations; trade, tourism and foreign investment; sustainable progress; national identity and reputation.

He is an Honorary Professor of Political Science at the University of East Anglia, was Vice-Chair of the UK Foreign Office’s Public Diplomacy Board, and is the author of five books.